


smile, despite everything

by callunavulgari



Series: Holiday Writing Challenge '12 [9]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Families of Choice, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’ve been without a family for a very long time, Hazel, and you’ve done some remarkable things for the sake of your mother. Not everyone would be able to resist Elysium, but you did. You have been denied a family for too long, my child. Now, it has found you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	smile, despite everything

**Author's Note:**

> Day 9 of the Holiday Writing Challenge on tumblr [over here](http://giraffe-tier.tumblr.com/post/35469673249/winter-drawing-writing-challenge). Prompt was 'fireplaces/candles'. Technically this should be posted tomorrow, but I have work early in the morning and need to go to sleep, and I can't post it after work because I'm going to be busy for the rest of the day. So this gets to be posted thirty minutes BEFORE the ninth.

Hazel still isn’t entirely comfortable with being in Camp Half Blood. People treat her well enough, but there’s this crawling sensation just under her skin that has her wary about putting her back to open spaces—like she’s surrounded by enemies on all sides. It’s disorienting, so she sticks to Frank’s side, keeping her back to walls or trees or the people that she trusts, which pretty much means Nico, Frank, Jason, and Percy. Annabeth is lovely, and Hazel respects her, but that’s part of the problem. Hazel trusts her, but Annabeth is a powerful enough warrior that her instincts won’t let her trust the other girl. Not completely, not yet.  
  
Which is how she ends up seated as far away from the campfire as she can go, propped up against a tree with Frank’s firewood safely in her jacket. She still checks it every few minutes, just to be sure—as if the fire can magically travel twenty paces in the blink of an eye.  
  
She’s not entirely sure where Frank ended up—the last time she’d seen him, he and Leo had been collaborating on something or another, which... well, it made her nervous. Those two getting along was interesting enough, but now that they’re fast becoming friends? She’s not sure. She’s glad, of course. They both need friends, but the combination of a hot-blooded, hyperactive half-blood who had a penchant for catching things on fire and the cool-headed son of Mars, destined to die by fire made her jittery and anxious.  
  
Sighing, she shifts against the tree, burrowing deeper into her coat. Apparently not many people are actually at camp during the winter, so it’s just a handful of them. Annabeth, Nico, and Percy are clustered around the fire, Percy laughing at Nico and Annabeth chastising them both. Jason and Piper are on the other side, whispering to each other, and since Leo and Frank are god knows where, that means the rest of them are the year-round campers that she hasn’t met yet. Wonderful.  
  
She watches her brother for a moment more, smiling when he frowns and grabs Percy’s hand. He does it like he expects to be shoved away or yelled at, but Annabeth just laughs with Percy and takes his other hand.  
  
She sighs again, fiddling with some of the frost-bitten grass beneath her. Maybe she will go find Leo and Frank—  
  
“Do you not like fire?”  
  
Hazel yelps, her hand going to her heart—feeling the piece of wood just in front of it—and jerks her head around, her other hand going to her spatha at her side.  
  
There’s a girl sitting next to her, brown hair tied up into a headscarf and just a simple brown dress clothing her. Her feet are bare, but it’s her eyes that catches Hazel’s attention—it’s as if the insides of her eye sockets are on fire. They blaze red and orange, but rather than frighten her, her gaze warms Hazel’s insides, like she’s having a quiet day with Frank and wouldn’t change it for the world.  
  
“You would prefer me in my Roman form, I assume?” she smiles, tucking her ankles beneath her knees.  
  
Hazel squints at her. “Who are you?” she asks, mentally flipping through a list of the god’s. “Vesta,” she finally settles on before the girl—no, the god can speak.  
  
“Hestia right now, child,” she says, still smiling. “Why do you not warm yourself by the fire? I can see you shivering. You needn’t fear for the life of Frank Zhang, I promise you that it is not yet his time.”  
  
Uncomfortable, she shifts a bit, her grip tightening on the piece of timber. “I’m fine,” she says, shivering.  
  
Hestia tsks at her, shaking her head. “I am the god of the hearth, Hazel. The god of family—you have my word that I won’t take your family from you. Not Frank or Nico, or even the Valdez boy.”  
  
Her throat seems to close up, and Hestia gives her a sympathetic smile before continuing. “You’ve been without a family for a very long time, Hazel, and you’ve done some remarkable things for the sake of your mother. Not everyone would be able to resist Elysium, but you did.”  
  
Hestia scoots closer to her, wrapping a thin, child-like arm around Hazel’s shoulders. “You have been denied a family for too long, my child. Now, it has found you. Find your boy of Mars and sit by the fire. You have my protection on this night.”  
  
With one last smile and a squeeze of her shoulders, Hestia vanishes.  
  
Hazel takes one deep calming breath of the winter air and goes to find Frank. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [satellite call [the campfire hymns remix]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203873) by [Sour_Idealist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist)




End file.
